England’s burgeoning revival as a limited-overs outfit received a rude setback yesterday when they were caught cold and clueless on the stodgiest of pitches in the first one-day international in Wellington.
Almost a year to the day since New Zealand ambushed world champions Australia at the same Westpac stadium, better known for rugby internationals and rock concerts, they did it again against an English team that had started to think it was going places in the 50-overs game under Paul Collingwood. England’s plane never left the runway.
They were deceived by a drop-in pitch that was softer than they thought and outwitted by opponents with years of experience at stifling opposing batsmen on surfaces devoid of life. After a cautious start of 34 between Alastair Cook and Phil Mustard, all attempts to raise the tempo failed. Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen dragged balls into their stumps, while Owais Shah (who has previous convictions for this offence), Collingwood and Graeme Swann were all run-out in foolhardy searches for short runs.
No batsmen are more honest than England’s; without Shane Bond on the field, there wasn’t a policeman in sight, and still they couldn’t steal a single. After two heartening victories in the Twenty20s, this was one of England’s most laboured performances with the bat, as they used up all but two balls of their allocated 50 overs to make a meagre 130. Mustard, the top-scorer, took 60 balls for his 31 and the entire team managed just seven boundaries. Twenty20 this was not.
Even when Australia sank to their first-ever 10-wicket defeat in ODIs here in 2007, they managed to scratch their way to 148 despite being without several frontline players. England have fewer excuses, as New Zealand are significantly weaker now than they were then, as key players such as Bond, Stephen Fleming and Craig McMillan have left the scene for various reasons.
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England also have recent experience of accumulating runs on death-slow pitches, and they really cannot say they did not know what to expect as they were skittled for 89 on their only previous visit to the Westpac in 2002.
They will hope for better surfaces in the remaining four matches, starting in Hamilton on Tuesday and Auckland on Friday, but everything is relative. As with the pace of life, things are rarely racey in New Zealand.
Collingwood admitted he had read the pitch wrong. “It looked as though it was nice and hard and the ball would come through but it was pretty much the opposite,” he said. “It was difficult to score on but they bowled and fielded very well. The run-outs didn’t help our cause. We didn’t get off to a bad start but from that point we didn’t get any kind of a partnership going. A score of 200 might have been defendable.”
While England chose to leave out the inform Dimitri Mascarenhas for Ravi Bopara (a move that backfired as Bopara fell for another low score), New Zealand were lifted by the return of captain Daniel Vettori and Jacob Oram, who bowled eight overs for 21 and 20 runs respectively. Scott Styris, the architect of New Zealand’s World Cup victory over England, was even more miserly, with two for 22 from 10 overs.
Another satisfied New Zealander was Chris Martin, who had attacked Andrew Strauss for arrogance after Strauss had implied that without Bond New Zealand were not an especially dangerous quantity.
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Martin bowled an intelligent round-the-wicket first spell at the left-handed openers and walked off with two cheap wickets.
“As an opening bowler, watching the ball go through around the wicketkeeper’s knees is never fun but it gave them less to hit,” he said. “We didn’t want to give them anything to get under and they didn’t seem to have a Plan B.” Strauss, who is playing for Northern Districts before joining England for the Tests, was in the crowd yesterday.
Vettori conceded that conditions played into New Zealand’s hands. “The wicket suited us. It is something we are more adept at than the English. They may not come across these wickets as much as we do. But we made the most of it. We would have batted first and thought a score of 230 to 240 was competitive.” For all New Zealand’s nous, and their own naivety, England ought to come back strongly. On paper they are the better side and their superior class ought to make the difference over five games. But New Zealand have always punched above their weight. They win 61% of ODIs at home and are not third in the ICC rankings for nothing. “We expect it to be a tight one-day series,” Vettori added.
“We’ve been a good one-day team for a long time and England are on the rise. A score of 3-2 was always in our minds.”
Chasing such a small target, New Zealand went for their shots with more abandon and an opening stand of 61 in 13 overs between Brendon McCullum and Jesse Ryder effectively settled the game. Stuart Broad put a more respectable gloss on the defeat by claiming three wickets, including Styris for a duck, but there was no hiding the magnitude of the result. This was a poor advert for England’s supposed renaissance and a poor advert for 50-overs cricket. A half-full stadium, and a finish 20 overs inside the distance, was eloquent censure. But let’s hope this defeat doesn’t drive the England players to drink in the way the one to New Zealand at the World Cup did.